| abstract: |
The traditional computing paradigm is experiencing a fundamental shift: organizations no longer completely control their own data, but instead hand it to external untrusted parties - cloud service providers, for processing and storage. There currently exist no satisfactory general-purpose methods for protecting that data during computation from cloud providers and from other users of the cloud. This represents a particular threat to privacy, as private data may not even be legally outsourced.
PRACTICE aims to fundamentally amend this issue by putting together a strong consortium of global players, innovative SMEs, and internationally renowned academic researchers in secure computation and cloud computing from all over Europe.
Based on Secure Multiparty Computation (SMC), PRACTICE will create a secure cloud framework that allows the realization of advanced and practical cryptographic technologies providing sophisticated security and privacy guarantees for all parties in cloud-computing scenarios. It will deliver a Secure Platform for Enterprise Applications and Services (SPEAR) providing application servers and automatic tools enabling privacy-sensitive applications on the cloud. SPEAR protects user data from cloud providers and other users, supporting cloud-aided secure computations by mutually distrusting parties and will support the entire software product lifecycle.
PRACTICE will build novel technologies for computation of arbitrary functions on encrypted data allowing data owners to fully utilize the economies of scale of cloud computing. PRACTICE is strongly industry-driven and will demonstrate its results on two end-user defined use cases in statistics and collaborative supply chain management. Moreover, it will investigate economical and legal frameworks, quantify the economic aspects and return on security investment for SMC deployment as well as evaluate its legal aspects regarding private data processing and outsourcing. |
